


While Passing on the Misery

by CeleryThesis



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Adultery, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeleryThesis/pseuds/CeleryThesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why are you here? You. Have. Everything.” said Cristina.</p><p>“I don’t,” said Owen.</p><p>AU/non-canon compliant starting from Cristina's exit from the show.</p><p>Emphasized warning: adultery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While Passing on the Misery

After Cristina left, Owen went on a three-month bender at the hospital. He slept his way through the nursing staff of every department. He slept with fellow physicians. He slept with lab technicians. Mid act of coitus with the young woman who worked the cash register in the cafeteria he had a Saul on the road to Damascus moment.

The next day he signed up on a dating website. He met Jessica within three weeks. She was eleven years younger than him. She was from Seattle and taught special education at an elementary school. She loved spending time outdoors on the weekends. She wanted at least three children. Her parents lived in the area and were ready and willing to be active grandparents. She enjoyed having sex with him and understood about his demanding work schedule. He proposed nine months after he had met her. They planned a Christmas wedding.

He didn’t invite anyone from the hospital except Kepner and Torres. He couldn’t look Meredith in the eye about anything not related to work. Teddy flew in to be his best person, and even she only agreed under duress. He coerced enough old army friends to show up so he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his new in-laws for lack of people. His mother was there and played her role.

Jessica had a positive pregnancy test by March. She declined a contract for the next school year. She would stay home with the baby and hopefully soon babies. Eleanor Catherine was born in December, almost on their first anniversary. She had her mother’s dark hair and his eyes. He took eight weeks off in spite of Jessica being home full time. He stayed up with Eleanor every night, rocking her for hours, though she had fallen asleep against his chest five minutes in. She was a remarkably easy baby.

There were validating moments when she was asleep against his chest, and she would wake for just a few seconds, look at him, sigh, half smile, and then fall asleep again. It had been worth it. It was worth it. He could lay her down in the bassinet and sleep peacefully himself.

By July, Jessica was pregnant again. They doubted their luck would hold for another Eleanor, who was content to eat, sleep, and smile most of the time. He arranged to take off April and May for the next year.

At the end of August, he walked into the junior varsity locker room to locate a missing intern. He hadn’t been in the room in months. The kid, who had been problematic from the time he signed on, was nowhere to be seen. Owen turned to go and shouldn’t have even seen the bulletin board. He wouldn’t have—he would have glanced right by it—if it hadn’t been for those wild, black curls. He whipped his head around. There were those, eyes, too, staring at the camera, above that nose and the mouth in a straight line with one tiny part of a lip curled up. The face practically shouted, _Oh really, you think so? All right, then. Go ahead._

He could hear her as if she were next to him. He had no memory of walking across the room to examine it more closely. She had been photographed in her office. There was a large portrait of Meredith and her circa the time he had met them framed on her wall. The edge of her desk was visible behind her, and she was angled just so the person looking at the photo could see about six inches behind her. There, in a photo taped to the desk’s surface, was unmistakably, his left ear.

He knew the photo immediately. She had taken it on the roof of their building one Thursday night when they were grilling and drinking and pretending it was summer even though it was still chilly April. They had been wrapped in a blanket, and she had crawled out to take his picture. The edge of a familiar blanket and the sky behind the ear revealed all. His heart was pounding. He had to take a moment to breathe.

The article was about her work at the institute in Switzerland. He skimmed. In the last paragraph it mentioned she was presenting a paper at a conference in San Francisco in early October.

It’s not that he’d had no contact with her. Every so often he would get drunk and text her, usually song lyrics. She always replied a few moments later, the same text:  _O_. That was it.

He signed himself off for the first weekend of October on the duty calendar. He booked a flight and a hotel room down the block from the hotel where the conference was. He put it on his own credit card, the one whose bill was delivered to the hospital each month, the one Jessica only had a vague awareness of.

In early September, Meredith stormed into his office, squinting at him aggressively.

“Why do you need that weekend off?”

“What?”

“You know exactly what. I was going to San Francisco that weekend, I even have childcare. You never take off the weekends, you’re saving up for your leave this spring and your baby.”

He doubted anyone had ever said the word _baby_ with a more accusatory tone.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Don’t do it, Owen. It’s a terrible idea.”

He had no argument for that. He just looked down. “Is she with someone?” he asked quietly.

“That’s not the point! Owen, what are you doing?”

“Is she?”

“No. No, she’s not, but she might be, she might be able to at some point if you don’t fuck with her.”

“It’s not rational, Meredith,” he said barely audibly. “I just have to see her. She can slap me and send me home.”

“She won’t,” Meredith said sadly. “What are you telling your wife?”

“Not the truth.”

“It’s not that I don’t understand.”

“Meredith…”

“No, Owen, I get it, I do. I just want you to be better. You love Jessica?”

“Meredith…”

“Oh, god, Owen. Why couldn’t you have just…If I’d had the chance you did…”

“I love Eleanor.”

Meredith slumped down into the chair in front of his desk and put her hands in her head.

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad,” she said.

“They may not mean to, but they do,” he recited back to her. He walked around his desk and reached for her. She stood and allowed him to embrace her. She leaned into his chest, and he held her so hard.

“Meredith…”

“I know, Owen.”

 

He told Jessica he was going to an emergency medicine conference in San Francisco. She seemed to hardly give it a thought. Eleanor was such an easy baby.

The flight felt longer than the short trip ever had. He wondered if Meredith had warned Cristina. He doubted it as he hadn’t received a text asking if he were crazy, if he were sure. He had memorized her schedule as reported on the website. She was speaking late this afternoon, and then there was a dinner. He had no idea if she had to attend. He planned to wait until after her lecture. He was tempted to walk in the back of the hall to experience that moment when she realized he was there, but he didn’t want to rattle her during her presentation.

He checked into his hotel, showered off the travel, and put on a suit so he would blend in at the conference. He wasn’t sure if he would get in past the reception desk, but the conference was winding down, and security was lax. He found the room she was in and waited just outside the door. He could hear her voice, the tone, not the actual words. Contentment washed over him. He smiled. He heard the moderator say there was time for one last question. He heard the timbre of a male voice before she took over again. She spent about three minutes answering, and then there was applause. 

He backed up from the door. There was a discrete hallway across from the conference room that led to restrooms. He thought it unseemly to be skulking there, not that this whole business wasn’t unseemly. Perhaps in front of the toilets was the best place for him. He certainly didn’t want to sully her although he surely was. He should probably leave. A moral person would just leave. A gentleman would leave. He found another place to wait, a niche farther down the hall that would allow him to see everyone as they exited.

The doors opened and people started sauntering out. It was the last event for everyone, and there was palpable air of Friday afternoon relief. For all he knew she had to make a seven P.M. flight to Geneva, and she might only be able to allow him a shared cab ride.

She emerged in the middle of a pack, with a large, black, leather bag strapped across her shoulder. There was no way she would see him right off, but he had the perfect view of her. She was wearing glasses with hardly any frames so they were barely noticeable. Her hair had been tamed somewhat, but it was still long and curly. She was wearing a black wrap dress that accentuated her breasts subtly. She had strappy black heels and no jewelry he could see from where he was.

She was walking toward him, and his heart felt as if it might explode. Very casually he moved slightly to the front of the niche and leaned against the wall with his arms folded. If she didn’t look at him, he had no idea what his next move would be.

She saw him. She stopped mid-stride and mid-sentence and stared at him. He gave her what he hoped read as an apologetic smile. He saw her inhale and exhale and finish her sentence not moving from the spot. He heard her say, “Will you please excuse me?”

She ducked away from the middle of the hall toward him.

“What? What?” She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked at him.

“Cristina.”

“What?”

He hadn’t planned this part. He didn’t know what to say. His mind was incoherent anyway. He looked around at the hall filled with doctors and scrambled.

“Owen Hunt,” he put out his hand,

She glowered at him.

“Cristina Yang,” she said out of the side of her mouth and shook his hand.

“Do you have time for a coffee…or a drink?”

She exhaled. He couldn’t read her at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she slapped him, embraced him, took him by the hand, continued staring at him, or turned and walked in the other direction.

“Not here,” she said.

“I’m booked in a place up the street.”

Her eyes widened. “Bold.”

“Not what I meant,” though he certainly wouldn’t object. “There’s a decent looking bar.”

“Okay.” She turned without looking or waiting and walked down the hall towards the lobby. He followed closely. Without losing her pace she brushed past reception and out the glass doors where she stopped on the carpet abruptly.

“Right,” he said, and she turned and started walking. Not having on heels gave him an advantage, and he caught up with her.

“You’re not here for the conference.”

“No.”

“Nice suit.”

“Blending in.”

“Not well enough.”

“Didn’t want to blend in too well.”

She sighed and stopped for a moment and then shook her head and continued.

“Just here, the Regency…” He was rushing to catch her again.

She strode in through the doors and then scanned the lobby for the bar, which was tucked away towards the right. She spotted it and continued towards it. It was lively, and Owen wasn’t sure if that was advantageous or not.

“Martini. I’m going to find a table,” she told him.

He ordered the drinks, his dirty, hers traditional.

“Start a tab?”

“Sure,” he told the bartender and gave the room number.

Cristina had found the most corner, most remote table in the place. He was cautiously optimistic that she had not requested a drink to throw in his face.

He handed it to her and sat. She took a sip and then started at him, not hatefully, he was glad to see.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I guess this is why Meredith cancelled?”

“Not her fault. I put in for the weekend first.”

“But she knows you’re here.”

“She does.”

Cristina’s face gave nothing away.

“Someone put the article…picture of you in the interns’ lockers, and I saw it, and…I don’t know Cristina, what can I say without sounding pathetic. I couldn’t imagine you being so close and not seeing you.”

“You could have called. You could have texted.”

“What would you have said?”

“Depends on how much I’d had to drink,” she took another sip. She was rubbing one arm distractedly with her hand, and he was so jealous of that hand. “Owen, why are you here?”

“I can’t give you a better answer, Cristina.”

“I stalk your wife on Facebook. I’ve seen a thousand pictures of Eleanor. Congratulations on the boy, by the way.”

He and Jessica had found out yesterday.

“I didn’t know you were on Facebook.”

“I’m not. I have a fake profile for stalking purposes, not just for _you_ ,” she said emphatically. “Your wife has almost no security on there, you should talk to her about that.”

“I’m not…I don’t have one…”

“I’m aware, Owen. Eleanor is beautiful, obviously, so is Jessica.”

“Thank you.”

She rolled her eyes spectacularly. “You’re welcome. Where does she think you are right now?”

“At a conference here.”

“Owen! Do I have to say it?”

“No.”

“What the fuck? Why are here? You. Have. Everything.”

“I don’t.”

She drained her drink. “Fuck! Fuck. Aw, Owen.” She reached to his face and put her hand on his cheek. He covered it with his own hand and closed his eyes.

“I saw the roof picture on your desk.”

“Yes.”

“Cristina,” he said quietly.

“You have a room here.”

“I do,” he said. “How long…”

“My plane leaves at seven A.M.”

Thirteen hours before she had to be at the airport. He finished off his drink. “Another?”

“No,” their hands were on the table, intertwined.

She stood and pulled him up, too, grabbed the bag and started walking toward the bar. He signed the tab, and she tucked herself in under his arm.

“Upstairs?” he said quietly but urgently.

She looked at him with one of those looks that morphed from _you idiot_ to _why do I do this to myself_ to _I love you so much, you motherfucking life ruiner_.

They made it to the elevators without touching. They stepped on with others and kept a respectable distance between themselves. He pushed the button for the seventh floor, and they waited. She was fidgeting the way she always did when she was nervous: busy hands, busy feet. They made multiple stops before they reach the seventh, almost to an unbearable point for him. Finally, they were there, and she followed him to the room, a smallish single where he had dropped his bag earlier.

Her wraparound dress had a tie in the back, and they had hardly made it into the room before he pulled the string and the dress opened. She let it fall off her shoulders. He recognized the bra. He had to look away to gain composure, and he hung his suit coat on the back of the chair and undid his tie and top buttons. She sat on the bed and unbuckled her shoes. He hadn’t seen the panties before, he didn’t think but they were exactly what she always wore, cotton bikinis with a jaunty pattern, this time pink and grey stripes.

He pulled her up from the bed and grasped her to him, he couldn’t stand it any longer; he started to sob. He hated it about himself: his inability to control his emotions, his inability to control anything with her. She was kissing him all over his face, all of his tears, and he grabbed her face and kissed her on the mouth. She opened it immediately and held him so tight. They had twelve and a half hours.

Suddenly her arms were everywhere, removing his shirt and tie, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his trousers and letting them fall. He realized he still had his shoes on and must look ridiculous, but he toed them off and didn’t care. He picked her up slightly under her ass and walked them to the bed, collapsing. Bra, unhooking, underwear, off. Socks, pulled off quickly. She grabbed his cock just as he reached down for her: wet, ready, eager, his.

“Condom?” he asked into her mouth.

“No, I…we don’t need one.”

“Are you back on…” Cristina did not react well to hormonal birth control.

“No, it’s taken care of, it’s okay, fuck me.”

He slammed into her on command and took one of her breasts into his mouth, remembering exactly how she wanted him suck her nipple right on top of his tongue. He groaned loudly and began moving in her. It was everything just then; it was the only thing. Her hair, and her mouth, and her breasts that fit perfectly into his hand and mouth, her hipbones, and foot around his ass, pushing him in farther. He had to taste her right then, so he pulled out and moved down quickly, possessing her clitoris again with his mouth, back where it belonged, and fucked her with two fingers and then three, and she came on his mouth and hand and cried out OWEN! And it was enough. He would have been satisfied right then.

But she pulled him back up, like he knew she would. (It had been a lie; Of course he wasn’t satisfied until he could come in her, and fill her up, and claim her.) He took her again and thrust in her four, five, six times before he came with a roar and collapsed on top of her.

They were silent for a stretch of time, and he would have been content to die there as long as he kept his mind free of Eleanor and of the son he would meet in the spring. Finally, she slapped his back several times and tried to maneuver out from under him.

“You fucking asshole,” she said neutrally. “Ugh.”

He lay back on the bed and brought her close to him, one hand exploring everywhere it could reach. A few years ago on a weekend trip to Vancouver for his birthday, she’d put a temporary tattoo on her labia majora that read Hunt’s. She’d told him it was permanent, and that the pain had stopped her from completing the design with its rhyming word. They had stayed in a very nice hotel with a deck and an extensive room service menu, and they had hardly left the room the whole weekend. He chuckled at the memory.

“Do you have an IUD?” he asked her “I didn’t…”

“I had a tubal.”

“What? Really?” he had no idea why he was surprised by this.

“It wasn’t a big deal. Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. I was back at work Tuesday.”

“When?”

“A year ago.”

He was suddenly forlorn that she’d had the surgery without him. _Irrational_ , he chided himself.

“How’s Meredith?” she asked.

“You probably talk to her more than I do.”

“I talk to her all the time, but she makes a great effort to be brave. How is she?”

“She doesn’t confide in me Cristina.” He knew that wouldn’t satisfy her. “I would say that she’s not great.”

She rolled off him and turned so that she was face down on the bed.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

“Is it possible to die of guilt?” she asked him, muffled because her face was in a pillow.

“Probably not.”

She turned on her side and propped her head on one hand with her elbow boring into the mattress. He mimicked her stance. Their faces were inches apart.

“Are you happy the baby is a boy?”

“I didn’t have strong feelings either way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. There were pros for each.”

“What are you going to name him?”

“Jessica likes Eli.”

“Eli Hunt is a good name.”

“Eli and Eleanor, though?”

“Yuck. Avoid,” she scrunched her nose as she said it, and it almost made him groan with affection.

“I like Charles. Charlie.”

“Charlie Hunt is a great name. Charlie Hunt could be a Supreme Court justice or a blues guitarist.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Two kids and done?”

“Jessica wants at least three.”

“You’re too old for three.”

“Probably.”

“That’s what you get for marrying a child.”

“Cristina.”

“What?” She rolled on top of him, flattening him on his back and then pinned his arms on either side of him with her hands. “What?”

He lifted his head and kissed her, and they were off again. He doubted he would be able to come after such a short time, but he surprised himself after fucking in every conceivable position for longer than she probably wanted to. She didn’t complain, though, and he finally came as they were sitting face to face on the bed. She had her arms wrapped around him, and her hair was flung over his back, and their chests were perfectly fit together. The sun went down while they were at it, and the room was dark now.

“Bath and then let’s find something to eat,” she sighed.

“Room service?”

“I want to go to Chinatown. I haven’t been in the city in a while.”

“That’s fine.”

They had spent several weekends here throughout the years. There was a noodle place in Chinatown she loved, and he was anxious to go back, too. He could pretend it was four years ago.

They settled in the bath that was too small to really enjoy, but again made him nostalgic, this time for the firehouse and the bathtub they had shared hundreds of times. She told him all about her life in Switzerland and the incredible weekend trips she could take although it sounded as if she didn’t very often. He couldn’t possibly justify being jealous of potential travel mates of hers, but he was.

They finished the bath and left the tub to dress for dinner. She only had her dress and a cardigan she pulled out of her bag, but years of on-call living had trained her to keep clean underwear on hand, so she was good to go. He had packed his Yang clothes: closer fitting jeans, a thrift store-esque short sleeve button down, funky socks, and vintage oxfords. These clothes made no sense for a dad in the rural suburban boonies. They were totems of a previous life downtown, and they felt like returning home. She took her bag with her in case they didn’t make it back to his hotel. They caught a cab across town.

Their noodle place was packed, so they drank beer out of green bottles and took advantage of the crowd to stand practically on top of each other waiting for a table. They were finally seated and ordered opposite flavors to share along with more beer. They talked about the old stuff: their neighbors, outdated hospital gossip, favorite travels. There was a shorthand between them; nothing had to be explained or put in context. It was so damned easy. They pushed the noodle bowls back and forth and laughed about everything.

They decided to walk by the water until the downtown Friday night scene woke up, and then they planned to find a place to dance until it was time for her to pack and go to the airport. She took selfies of them; he did not. He couldn’t have them on his phone, so he memorized them.

She wanted to hear every detail about his wedding, not just the Facebook version, so he told her what he could. He didn’t share her compulsion to poke at a mouth sore with his tongue, and he changed the subject as soon as possible.

When the late night crowds meandered in, they found a dance club. She knew every song they played, but he had only heard one of every ten. They danced to them all. They were easily fifteen years older than most of the crowd. She flung her hair wildly and he had to grab her regularly and press her against him before he let her go back to jumping around the dance floor. They took a break every five songs for a shot chased with water; tequila for her, whiskey for him.

By last call it was time for her to return to her hotel to pack and take the airport shuttle. He practically carried her out; she sat on his lap in the cab. They stumbled through the lobby, to the elevator, through the door, to the bed. She rolled on top of him and took his face into her hands.

“Don’t do this again.”

“Cristina.”

“Owen, don’t. Please.”

He untied the dress and pushed it off her shoulders. He unhooked her bra and brought her back to him so he could kiss her, softly this time. She started unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Tears fell down her face. He wrapped her up in his arms so tightly and rolled them over and held her as she cried.

He stood and removed the rest of his clothes. He wanted nothing between them. He slid her underwear down and off and returned to the bed beside her. She took over, wrapping her leg around his hip and pressing herself against his cock. He slid into her and they just stayed there for a second before he started fucking her slowly, hovering just above her, clasping both her hands in his.

“I’ll stay away, Cristina. I love you so much. I love you,” he whispered.

She whimpered against him and clinched around his cock. He put his finger and thumb in his mouth and then reached down to her clitoris and rubbed her in time with his thrusts. She came and then he came, and he felt devastated as he collapsed beside her.

She pulled him with her to the shower. She didn’t have time to wash her hair or even take a moment in there. She took charge again, making sure they were clean, and then he had to put on his nightclub clothes again, and they felt awful against his skin and smelled like something he wasn’t ready to be nostalgic about.

She threw her things in a bag and was ready in minutes.

“I’ll come with you to the airport.”

“Of course,” she said, a bit impatiently.

He took her bags against her protest, and she leaned on him in the elevator.

The shuttle was waiting with several other passengers. The trip to the airport was short.

In what seemed like moments they were at security.

He held her to him and closed his eyes.

“I didn’t mean it earlier. Text me. Come see me. Surprise me, Owen.”

“Cristina…”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.” He promised himself, though, that he would never do it again. He held her fiercely because of that thought and kissed her with finality.

“Owen,” she said and left him.

He watched her go through the line. She looked back several times. Finally, she was through and gone.

He walked a long way to an airline desk and changed his departure from Sunday to later that day. He caught a cab back to his hotel to pack, thinking about the next time he would see her.

**Author's Note:**

> The title alludes to Philip Larkin's poem [i]This Be the Verse[/i], lines of which Meredith and Owen also quote.


End file.
